Tuesday

I guess that's what some of y'all will say when y'all hear how much fun I had picking out how I get to look in Heaven--that's the new me right there, perched on a sickle moon) but I don't care what y'all think. I had one Hel* of a time!

Now, if you don't know the tale of how I got to this thrilling juncture, scroll down to the post below or look right here.

But to sum up, I died, then arrived at the Gates of Heaven, and St. Peter, who talked like a Presbyterian, though I had always had him pegged as a Catholic, looked me up on his Blackberry and informed me that I was one of the Elect and was destined to come here, but I was predestined to sin some more before I got to come.

And his hippy angel sidekick chimed in and said I had to go back and work off some bad karma, and St. Peter walloped him on the head with his scepter and said to him, "We don't appreciate that New Age crap up here! And what are you doing here, anyhow?"

But I told them both I was raised a Baptist and therefore believed in free will and could do as I dam* well pleased.

Forthwith, I slipped through the gate and took off running and St. Peter and the angel ran toward me and made out like they'd grab me and throw me out.

And I stopped in my tracks and said, “Look, Pete, since I’m already here, just let me look around a little bit and take some notes. I can get that girl who wrote that book about my life to write a book about how I went to Heaven and came back to tell about it, and everybody'll fall for it hook, line, and sinker, and I can knock that old hag Sylvia Browne off the bestseller list, and also that moony-eyed Deepak Chopra, and can make enough money to keep me off Medicaid, to tide me over 'til my time to come here."

And he cocked his head and said, “Well…"

And I spoke up real fast to close the deal and said, "I’ll split the proceeds with you fifty fifty."

“Well,” he said. “All right, but be back before the cock throws dice! I mean cock crows twice! Thrice!”

And I took off past the gate, with my eyes on that Celestial City in the distance.

And I ran with the speed and ease of a gazelle, with hind's feet on high places, and through golden groves and by crystal waters of flowing rivers where saints had gathered, and by a flowery field covered with ten thousand angels at choir practice, and past the green, green grass of home and Mama and Papa and Aunt Ollie Pearl, and all who had gone on before, except, luckily, my enemy, Cloris Bell--and I waved at them and they waved back, all of us knowing it wasn’t my time yet, though it would come soon and what a day of rejoicing that would be...

And I crossed my hands over my chest and smiled and caused my face to beam and said, “My name is Mrs. Trixie Goforth, and I feel like I’ve died and went to Heaven.”

“Hmm. I recognize the name. You’re the one who faked a gall bladder attack at that Oral Roberts tent meeting back in the 1930s."

And he started punching buttons on his Blackberry and said, ”I’m not sure you’re one of the elect. I think you are predestined to go back and sin some more.”

“Why, St. Peter, you’re a Presbyterian? Half my friends are Presbyterian! Can you find it in your heart to forgive me for thinking you were a Catholic?”

But about that time, he found my name on his Blackberry. “Go back! It’s not your time yet.”

And I worked up a cry and said, “St. Peter, you can’t mean that! You mean that I, Trixie Goforth, who has stored up food in my pantry so those left behind in the Rapture won’t starve to death, am not bound for Heaven? Tell me that old Cloris Bell didn’t make it! She who ran with the men, stole money from the cash register when she worked at the Picadilly Cafeteria, and hogged all the food at the church suppers, and joined the church right before she died just so she’d have a preacher to do her funeral."

“See there, Mrs. Goforth? That filthy mouth of yours! Your name is written in the Book of Life. You will come back here someday, but you’ve got some sinning left to do."

“Yeah!” the angel piped in, “You’ve got to go back and work off some bad karma!”

At which point St. Peter walloped him on the head with his scepter. “Shut your mouth! We don’t appreciate that New Age crap here!”

And I hastened to inform them both that they were both full of barn yuck. I was raised a Baptist and believed in free will, and to prove it, I took off running through the gates, my eyes afire and firmly fixed upon that Shining City on the Hill.

Thursday

That picture over there is of my son Terry Wayne when he was going through a phase in his teen years, and it’s a testimony of what a mama has to deal with sometimes. Any woman who has known the pleasure of having a young one spring pink and wet from her loins knows that a book on how to raise them right does not pop out with it. You bring them into the world but you cannot govern their actions.

Take a good long look at that picture, now, because it’s real symbolic. That means there’s a deeper meaning to it than the one that hits you in the face right off the bat, and since I've learned that there are those of you who aren’t as sharp as I am, I’m going to spell it out for you real clear.

And take a minute to gaze into those beady eyes and make note of what all you see there, and if you find something let me know it.

If you're one of my countless admirers all over the world, you know in my last write-up I got worked up over some funny monkey business. It was about this monkey in a zoo in Sweden who had worked up a mad about getting stared at all the livelong day, day in and day out, until finally at last he studied over what to do and ended up hatching a plan to store up a pile of rocks which he then proceeded to sling at the zoo visitors the next day.

The scientists watching him declared it proof that monkeys make plans, something which those of us with common sense--but no big funding to support our notions--have known ere long.

That story tickled me to death, and I got word from the world over that countless others of us who walk upright, and sometimes take excess pride in the fact, understood that monkey too.

And I learned that people all across the globe have their own words for how that monkey felt. I learned that there are some thousand different ways of saying "pis*ed off,” and that each of those ways has its own special charms.

And that story spooked me too, because I felt like I understood that monkey and his mad with a depth that was all but unnatural, what with my being brought up a Baptist.

But I read that story over and over because I felt like I'd been inside the mind of that monkey and had felt with him the pure pleasure of release when the first rock left his grubby little hand and soared in an arc and crashed like a meteor into the crowd of gawkers.

I felt like I had slipped into that monkey just as my son Terry Wayne had slipped inside that big ape suit the better to impersonate Bigfoot for a documentary movie he and some of his bowling pals made back when they were teenagers for a show called "The Truth is Out There" on the public access TV channel.

That film, with its footage of Bigfoot lurching through the woods, and even crossing a paved road, had everybody hopping until it was proved a fake and the scandal got written up in newspapers nationwide.

(That picture up there is of my son IN HIS BIGFOOT SUIT, which fact I forgot to mention until just now.)

And I was hopping mad when I found out about his part in that uproar, which I did by watching the show on TV myself, before I knew my own son was involved in it.

When the camera zoomed in on the big footprint which was alleged to be leftover from Bigfoot stepping in the mud, I recognized it as Terry Wayne’s own foot, which is oversized and with the big toe shaped just like a lightbulb, like his daddy’s.

When I cornered Terry Wayne, he denied that was his foot, but I looked him straight in the eye and pinpointed the lie. “I’d know that foot if I found it on the moon!” I told him, at which point he hung his head in shame.

“Son, you have gone and violated one of the Ten Commandents: You have borne false witness. You have spent your allowance money on a Bigfoot suit. You have pretended to be something you are not, and furthermore, you have deceived countless millions and have given them false hope.”

But he denied that he had pretended to be something he was not, which sent me into a spasm of worry, for there is on his daddy’s side of the family a strain of insanity, as one of Terry Wayne’s own cousins went away from a summer working at Disney World convinced he really was Donald Duck, and was known to wear his Donald Duck suit even years later while making presentations in the boardroom of the big finance company where he was top dog.

“Honey, you are not Bigfoot, and I hope you know that,” I told him.

“Yes, Mama, but—"

“You are my firstborn son. All I want from you is for you to do your best, to be who you are. I do not expect you to aspire to any greater heights than that."

“But Mama,” he kept on, “what I’m trying to say is, when I slipped inside that suit, it's like I BECAME Bigfoot! When I was running around the woods and peeping at people from behind the bushes, I WAS Bigfoot! It was like his mind was my mind, his big foot, my big foot!"

Well, that tickled me what he said, because Terry Wayne was a little devil of a liar in those days, but when I stared into his eyes, I picked up amongst the twinkles of deception a little fleck of something that looked like honesty, and then I got worried he’d gone and lost his mind, and would end up like his cousin Donald Duck in the boardroom.

But now, as the wheels of the years have turned a number of times, I understand what he was talking about.

And that is simply that the saying “we are more alike than we are different,” does not apply only to people of different nations and religions and races.

Looks like we’ve got kinfolk some of us don’t own up to having, which fact tickles me, and with that, I leave you with this little movie of monkeys flossing their teeth and teaching their little ones to do the same: Monkeys flossing teeth.

And for all you Doubting Thomases out there, who still don't see how much monkey is like man and man like monkey, here's where some scientists did a study that shows monkey men will pay to see female monkey behinds. That, y'all, should leave no doubt.

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I thank you kindly for stopping by, and whichever one of you brought in my clothes off the line, I just love and praise you for it. Take a look at my Precious Memories Album! Just click and go:

[All posts: Copyright 2008/2009 by Trixie Goforth and Sherry Austin, that girl who helps me out and wrote that book about my life called The Days Between the Years. Go on and push the envelope! (That little one down there with the arrow on it.) Forward my words of wisdom all over the globe. But all other rights (and writes) reserved.]

Monday

[Photo: Monkey working up a mad, getting ready to throw rocksat zoo vistors.]

I'm sorry y'all, but I just have to interrupt this series about how important cabbage is in all our lives to report this news that I just found out.

A 31 year-old monkey in Sweden got up early the other morning before the zoo opened up and took to collecting a pile of rocks and sat there studying on when was the best chance to unload his stash on all the gawkers he had to put up with every day.

Then, around about noon, when enough of a crowd gathered that he figured he wouldn't waste his effort, he let loose slinging the rocks at the people gawking at him across the moat from the little island where they keep him.

Or, as the people who wrote up the study put it: "He waited until around midday before he unleashed a 'hailstorm' of rocks against visitors."

Here's the part that tickles me: "'These observations convincingly show that our fellow apes do consider the future in a very complex way,' said the author of the report, Lund University Ph.D. student Mathias Osvath."

I think I'll get me one of those Ph.d degrees so I can say what anybody with half a brain already knows and get spread all over the Google for saying it.

But I want to ask y'all how many times you've felt like doing what that monkey did.

I know I have. There are days when everything everybody's ever said that has pis*ed me off just builds up in me after a while, like stomach gas.

And at such times, though I try hard to be a Christian, my greatest desire is to bombard the world with my displeasure.

My weapon of choice might be different from that monkey's: I might load up on bricks, for instance, instead of rocks, or if I've had time enough to pray down my mad, I might take to pitching from that pile of Granny Smith apples I keep down in the cellar, but whatever weapon I choose, just like that monkey I'd take as much pleasure in the planning of the event as in the execution.

And the fact that scientists have now proven that all animals feel the same way just goes to show it's a 100 percent all-natural temptation.

Now here's the part of the story I most take to heart: "He rarely hit visitors because of his poor aim, and no one was seriously injured in the cases when he did."

That tells me to work on my aim so when I sling I won't miss.

All y'all who seek to please me don't have a thing to worry about.

The rest of y'all get ready to duck and cover when Granny Goforth's working up a mad.

*******[All posts: Copyright 2008/2009 by Trixie Goforth and Sherry Austin, that girl who helps me out and wrote that book about my life called The Days Between the Years. Go on and push the envelope! (That little one down there with the arrow on it.) Forward my words of wisdom all over the globe. But all other rights (and writes) reserved.]

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Want to lavish me with praise? Want to declare your everlasting love for me? Want to stay off the shi* list I keep on the back of a Duke Power bill envelope? Send me an email at trixiegoforth [at] gmail [dot] [com]. I will keep your email safe and warm beneath the flaps of my ample bosom.

Thursday

I'm telling you all what: If I get any more popular, y'all are going to have to tie me up and throw me off the cliff!

That next-to-last write-up about my walloping Cloris Bell in the head with a drum leg, and then the one about my cutting up in a cabbage leaf in the Garden of Eatin,' opened the floodgates of praise. And of all kinds of questions and requests.

I've had people write in and ask me if Eve had long hair and Adam had blue eyes. I've had people write in and complain because I gave out the Devil's phone number, which I did not. It was just his area code (666).

And besides, there's plenty of y'all out there who know his number, have his email, and his mailing address. You're not fooling this old bag for a minute.

And then there are those who just want to know how I make my famous cabbage rolls. That girl who helps me out said I'm going to have to hire one somebody just to dish out words of wisdom and another to write up how to make cabbage rolls, stuffed peppers, and cathead biscuits!

Miz Kitty, who is one of my chickens, not that fast-tailed, big-headed, Tammy- Faye-looking thing who hopped in the bed with Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke at the drop of a hat--just wrote me, and here's what she said:

"Trixie I was wondering if you could tell me how to make them cabbage rolls for my man. I don't believe I ever ate cabbage rolls, but they sound pretty good. I think stuffed peppers sound good too, but I never have made them either. I'm ready to experiment a little bit."

Well Miz Kitty, first let me tell you that this whole uproar over cabbage got started when Amanda notified me about her Cabbage Patch Stew, which I believe Scarlett also makes, and I believe it's Scarlett who told that tale lately of losing her cabbage, which tale I do treasure.

And second, let me tell you that if you cook something the way I do, you WILL experiment because I've hardly ever used anything resembling a recipe in my life, except maybe for a pound cake. And for my chow chow. Sometimes.

As I've always said: It is a reckless thing to do as I do. But Miz Kitty, if you're ready to jump in, I'm ready to show you the hole.

Besides, I'm happy to promote cabbage in any way I can.

Time and time again I have said, and all you out there in the national press who are following me are free to quote me: Cabbage is our most under-rated vegetable. Cheap. As good for you as broccoli and asparagus, though not as hoity toity, I'll wager.

I'll tell you how I make cabbage rolls, and it's easy:

Take a head of cabbage. (You knew that was coming, didn't you?) Get one with big green leaves if you can.

Cut the bottom and a good bit of the inside core out. Wash the head of cabbage good and put it in a big pot and cover it with a lid.

Pour a couple of cups of water into the pot.

Bring it to a boil, turn it down, and let it boil about ten to 15 minutes. Leave the lid on and let it sit there until the cabbage is cool.

All that does is make it easy to take the leaves apart. Best to do it a good bit of time before you make the rolls, or the day before, truth be told. Or the morning of the night you want to have them. That way they're nice and cool!

Pull the leaves apart. You'll have a lot of leaves!

Take some ground meat--beef or pork or both--and add some cooked rice and salt and pepper and chopped onions to it.

Moosh it all up good. Some people add an egg, but I don't.

Wrap little wads of the meat into each leaf and hold together with a toothpick.

Lay the rolls in a big pan and cover with however many cans of diced tomatoes it takes to cover them good. I add a good bit of sugar to the tomatoes, myself.

Some people take some of the tomato juice and thicken it with cornstarch and a little vinegar, but I don't.

Some people also add tomato sauce. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't.

Cover it all up with aluminum foil and cook for about 350 degrees for close to an hour.

When it cools down some, take out the toothpicks. Don't want anybody choking on toothpicks. Not anybody we care about, anyhow.

I think they're even better the next day.

That's how I do it, honey. I think. With my head in the pantry half the time, how do you expect me to remember every little thing, anyhow???

If you want a real strict recipe, they're all over the Google.

And if you take them to a church supper, be on the lookout for Cloris Bell.